Forge

[Strages Sanctus]

I like the idea of those types of site Uhnubuh

[Edi]

HoneyBadger said:
Endoperez, Edi, you're both blowing this thing way out of proportion.

Because you say so?

HoneyBadger said:
Yes, each nation might have different ways of going about magical labs, temples, etc. but-except for two nations, Pangaea and Man (and yes, your vision of a temple for Pangaea makes sense at 200 gold, but 200 gold temples to Man patently flies in the face of your very same vision)-they're all the same price, and they all do generic things.

Yes, they do. What's wrong with that? They serve similar functions even if the actual details of worship, labwork etc were different (if we're talking suspension of disbelief here). You need some kind of abstraction and simplification so that you can get on with the actual game.

The thing about Man having cheaper temples at least in the early era sin't too far-fetched since we're basically talking about a circle of stones that doesn't even need to be a full-fledged Stonehenge. That's a lot cheaper relatively to build than e.g. a Mictlan type temple pyramid. But that is not much more than a tangent here.

HoneyBadger said:
You don't have the Mictlan temple, you don't have the Agarthan lab, you have temple, lab. You use the presence of those two buildings to your advantage depending on your particular strategy-which includes which nation you decide on. They may represent different things to different people-which is what I was trying to illustrate above-but they're otherwise almost totally generic, and each one has to be capable of the same thing,

Precisely.

HoneyBadger said:
plus national things, depending on the choices the player makes.

That's already in there because the different nations have different national spells, different mages, hence different forging options etc, so why need more things?

HoneyBadger said:
Not that my argument about the nature of labs and temples has any real relevance, since they're already in the game. I just wrote an example for purposes of comparison-as perfectly valid a comparison as yours, Endoperez.

Your comparisons are valid as such if one ignores the end-goal we're talking about here. The game is supposed to be smoothly playable, and unnecessary micromanagement tends to screw that up. That's why Endo is shooting down your suggestion, as am I.

HoneyBadger said:
Edi, comparing adding one building which can be purchased by every nation in every era, to the gameplay of Space Empires 5 is patently ridiculous.

Care to elaborate how, because what you proposed adding was something that would be building units up from scratch, which needs that kind of infrastructure from the game engine. SE5 has ship design from scratch, how is your proposal of kitting out units as one sees fit different?

HoneyBadger said:
You even state that you don't know about SE5 in your argument, and "afaik" you've never played it, so why are you even making it a part of your argument???

Answer the point instead of blustering and waving your hands. I have very little patience for this kind of evasion, but very well, I'll humor you this time. I'll use an example of games I HAVE played, Master of Orion 1 & 2, which are in many ways similar to Dominions and from what I have heard, to the Space Empires series.

You have essentially provinces (the star systems) with resources and other things that allow you to build ships (units). The difference is that in MoO 1&2 you can design your ships from scratch and build them as you like, which REQUIRES the game engine to incorporate dynamic unit design as an integral part. Dominions does NOT have dynamic unit design as part of the game engine, but your proposed new forge building REQUIRES that to be added to it to work as you envision.

So, in that respect, HOW THE HELL IS THAT DIFFERENT FROM THE GAMEPLAY OF MOO 1&2 OR THE SPACE EMPIRES SERIES WHERE DYNAMIC UNIT DESIGN IS INTEGRAL TO THE GAME?!

HoneyBadger said:
It's the moon being made of green cheese and the world being flat all over again. You've never been to the Moon and you've never seen the Earth from space, so you're going to argue about it with an astronaut?

False analogy. You're putting yourself in the position of the astronaut and assuming me to be completely ignorant, when both counts are wrong. I've never been to the moon, but I've seen rather vivid footage of it, as well as footage of what earth looks like from space. I may not be as qualified to talk about it as someone who has been there and done that, but that does not mean I am completely ignorant. Next argument, please, or are we going to get more handwaving?

HoneyBadger said:
I haven't played SE5, but I've played a LOT of SE4 (infact I've exchanged emails with Aaron Hall on one occasion, he's a very nice man-SE3 is why I know about Shrapnel Games in the first place), and SE4 had dozens of buildings, hundreds if you count mods. SE5 certainly has that many and probably more, it's something I've researched extensively in preparation to buy it,

Thank you for point blank verifying precisely what I was talking about. You may not have proposed hundreds of new buildings, but you did propose one building that results in hundreds or thousands of new UNITS, so there is no material difference with this game engine. And you have the gall to accuse me of not knowing what I was talking about when it is very clear that I know enough to make a sound argument.

HoneyBadger said:
and it IS micromanagement-hell, in a good way, mind you.

In a good way if you like that sort of thing. If I were to get SE5, I'd expect it, just as I expected it of MoO2 after playing MoO. Dominions is a different sort of a beast in this regard, so why would we want to change it that radically?

HoneyBadger said:
(If you want to argue that, because I haven't played SE5 either, I don't know what I'm talking about, well you can, but you'll be undermining the base of your own argument, and as far as you know, maybe someday the Earth WILL be flat and the Moon WILL transform into green cheese.)

And maybe you will one day stop handwaving and harping on this same fallacious angle.

HoneyBadger said:
What I'm talking about is 1, as in a total of 3, specialized buildings, in addition to fortresses (which ARE distinct from one another). It wouldn't require any more programming than adding temples to the game right now would, because forges wouldn't be doing anything OTHER than what temples do, or labs, already. Ok, that might be a significant amount, considering all the units, but NOT every unit would be affected.

Fine, let's cut the numbers in half so you only have ~1000 units, each with up to 4 weapons (out of ~400 possible) and 3 armors (out of ~100 possible). Run the numbers. Then tell me what the difference is from game engine alteration point of view?

HoneyBadger said:
As far as construction being a little different from the other magic schools-it already is because of the ability to manufacture magical items in place of spells. Construction in the game represents technology combined with magic or fantasy elements, and if you haven't noticed, even without the presence of "working, everyday magic"(I refuse to believe that there's no magic whatsoever in this world, I think just maybe the server goes down a lot). I'm for making Construction more a part of a nation's life, more powerful and diverse, and the overall "intelligence" of our little computer people, more intelligent. <snip list of wishes>

Most of that stuff is already assumed to be in the game as abstractions. It'd be great to have as long as it didn't result in excess micromanagement, but right now that's a pie in the sky wish. There's other games that incorporate all of that and more. Never mind that they actually had working steam engines as curiosities in the Greco-Roman period, though those were lost and never got off the ground, as well as e.g. almost 20th century level medical technology wrt surgery.

HoneyBadger said:
All of those ideas, plus "magic tech" would be connected somehow to Forge, just like holding a dwarven hammer is somehow related to making a blood-soaked parchment more efficiently, as someone stated earlier (I expect the dwarven hammer allows for a cleaner kill, ala 19th century slaughterhouses).

In other words, let's rewrite the whole game - or not. Suspension of disbelief is a good thing, and in this case you might be able to envision the dwarven hammer as representative of some more efficient technique instead of the mage actually using a hammer on parchment. It solves a lot of problems much more easily than adding tons of extraneous stuff.

HoneyBadger said:
By the way, not to complain too loudly-and I have NO complaints against Kristoffer or Johan or Illwinter itself, mind you-but I swear that, for all the often-vaunted "community of acceptance where you can have a voice and where your ideas can make a difference", I'm really finding that there's a great deal of stubbornness and opposition to any "new idea" that doesn't have to do with a gripe that goes back to Dom2 or even Dom1.

You will please point out where I've been invoking Dom1 and Dom2 except in comparisons to Dom3? There might be such stubbornness on some counts, but mostly it's when people start advocating radical changes that require rewriting the game to do and won't take no for an answer.

HoneyBadger said:
I'm not some crazy person who's espousing adding 25 new buildings that each represent 1 unit for 1 nation, I'm trying to open up possibilities, make the game bigger and more fun. I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. I'm also NOT saying that this has to be done RIGHT NOW. I am fully cognizant of the size of Illwinter's development team, and atleast somewhat aware of the pressure they're under. And please NOTICE I'm also not saying that I'm RIGHT.

Then this is perhaps a topic that should be discussed in context with possible sequels to Dom3?

HoneyBadger said:
Edi, what you fail to realize is that I'm your friend when it comes to being a watchdog against micro-management, NOT your enemy. I've certainly played as many or more strategy games per year that I've been alive, as you have, and a great many of those years I've spent designing games and systems and helping others design games and systems. I work with computers and complex systems for a living, infact. I have enough experience to be able to give a fair guestimate of the dangers and the rewards of adding or subtracting a given game-element.

Given the way you tossed off the OP suggestion, it betrayed a rather large lack of understanding of the game engine of Dom3, which is the crux here. It's currently the limiting factor here. In another context, I'd have fewer things to say in opposition.

HoneyBadger said:
And Edi, I'm intelligent enough and emotionally stable enough to understand and consider another's argument, without that argument being served with a gravy of sarcasm.

I'll admit that my opening was more than a bit sarcastic, but I tend to get that way when it seems to me that the most obvious relevant things have been missed.

HoneyBadger said:
If you have an opinion, please share it straight up. I'll give it more weight, I promise. I do agree with some parts of your rant that aren't hostile though, to a greater or lesser degree, but I also think that you could have made the same point without being extremely negative and off-putting.

I've never been known to sugarcoat my opinion. I'm sorry if you took that too personally, but the derision was toward the argument being put forth, not toward the person who made it.

HoneyBadger said:
If people have new ideas that might benefit the game (or even might not), I personally feel that those people should be encouraged and guided, not made to feel that everything is impossible (and not just impossible, the word used was "stillborn" which I consider not only negative but a tad repulsive when used to describe an idea I've invested a lot of time and effort into, for the hopeful benefit of everyone.). This is especially true in a very small community such as ours. We barely have a large enough population to sustain the production of fresh new ideas and new ways of looking at things, and discouraging the growth of that resource is just plain counter-productive.

I'm all for new ideas as long as they are well thought out. If we're talking about things to add to Dom3, we have to take into account the current limitations. If we're talking about things to consider for a sequel, that's a different story entirely. CONTEXT. In the first option, we're wasting time talking about virtual impossibilities. In the second, we're doodling on a relatively blank slate so they are worthwhile. You just put it in the first context in the OP.

Edi

[Endoperez]

HoneyBadger said:
Not that my argument about the nature of labs and temples has any real relevance, since they're already in the game. I just wrote an example for purposes of comparison-as perfectly valid a comparison as yours, Endoperez.

And please NOTICE I'm also not saying that I'm RIGHT. I'm just making a suggestion that makes sense to me, as far as furthering the enjoyment, usefulness, and sense of the game-as in the way the game works making sense to me-and for all my troubles (creation is hard, and more hard the more complex the creation is-ask Kristoffer) I get something like a 500 word lecture on why I "might possibly be wrong because Ars Magica has something to say about how mages conduct their lifestyles" and other arguments which are plain contradictory, or at best personal interpretations which don't have a lot to do with the reality of the game.

Both our examples are perfectly valid. I have given an in-game, "thematic" reason not to implement a Forge, you have given an in-game, "thematic" reason to implement it. We could argue about which is better, but because our opinions won't really affect whether or not a Forge will be implemented, it'd be rather dumb.

Also, I'd like to point out that as far as "other arguments which are plain contradictory, or at best personal interpretations which don't have a lot to do with the reality of the game" go, you're not any worse than I. As you said, these other arguments are fun to read. I found your post interesting, even if it was a bit hard to read and overly long.

As far as construction being a little different from the other magic schools-it already is because of the ability to manufacture magical items in place of spells. Construction in the game represents technology combined with magic or fantasy elements. I'm for making Construction more a part of a nation's life, more powerful and diverse. If there's a discovery that would be blatantly obvious to a society capable of creating flying metal suits or iron dragons or even chainmail or crossbows, then they should be able to utilize it. I'm not talking big things like gunpowder or steam, I'm talking at best Greko-Roman technology and it's equivalent, up through perhaps a handful of 13th through 16th century inventions.

I'd like to give nations the ability to create field artillery and field fortifications. I'm talking about scorpions, ballistas, Greek-fire throwers, and the like; I'm talking about ditches, rows of stakes, pitfalls, small-scale motte-and-baileys, etc.

I hope you don't mind the way I edited your post in my quote. I made it shorter, more compact, removed things that aren't needed to understand my reply.

You want a Forge building so that Construction wouldn't increase just the magical equipment available to a nation, but also the level of technology. If a Warrior Smith can forge full Black Plate armors and Piercers, if Helheim Valkyries and commanders start with magical Light-Weight Chainmails, why can't everyone use them? If any F1 mage can create a Just Man's Cross, why isn't Abysia using crossbows in EA?
I agree that it doesn't make sense. However, I wouldn't fix it this way. Developing plate armor and crossbows takes more than two or three years. Jotuns never learn to use slings, one of the simplest tools in excistence, for example. Man starts using lots of Crossbows between middle and late ages. It shouldn't be possible to research Construction 2 (Just Man's Cross) and start giving your Tower Guards crossbows.

The real problem is that magical items are the same across different ages. In Early Age, plate armors are trinkets. In Late Age, Fire Bolas and Rat Tails and Whips of Leadership are still Greater items. Early Age should have Basalt Spears and Basalt Armor as trinkets instead of Swords or Spears of Sharpness and armors of Black Steel. In LA, the armors giving resistances could be better - perhaps Full Chain instead of just Plate. Just the ability to add new pictures and edit descriptions would do a lot. After that, it'd be easy to select the item called Piercer, change it's name to Basalt Spear, change the picture, then select the weapon called Piercer and change it's stats.

I'd rather have magic item modding than a Forge.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Thanks.

I like HB's basic idea, but as I stated (and as others have more vociferously stated) I think it would take the developers to do it--and it would be a pretty big task. One might even say an Elemental Task That Would Rock The Very Foundations Of This World!!!111 (queue eerie music).

However, adding a few special sites and the units they can allow should be pretty simple. I've been working on a dragon mod (from a previous thread) and I might as well incorporate these "Forge" ideas into the mod. 3 or more special forge sites that vary in their rarity and their products.

These will be simple mods, nothing elaborate. I will leave elaborate for those more able or more motivated.

[HoneyBadger]

Edi, I'm not taking your reactions personally, I'm just trying to point out that they may have a detrimental effect on the confidence of people in general with new ideas-especially people new to this forum, as in people who have just bought Dom3 in the last 3 months, aka new customers (something we should be taking into consideration for the future of Dominions, even if Kristoffer and Johan aren't in it so much for the money)-without actually contributing anything really all that constructive.
You are blowing this thing out of proportion, a great deal more than Endoperez or even myself, because you've obviously invested quite a bit of time and emotion into expressing why what I consider a fairly simple, modifiable idea (as in I don't care if it's a "great" idea or if someone wants to use it to base another idea on it, as per Uh-Nu-Buh's mod) would basically "rewrite the whole game". Tell me that's not blowing things out of proportion.
Why need more things? well, why do we need the around 2000 units that we have? why do we need Dom3 to be as complex a game as it is? why does anyone bother making mods? because greater complexity serves the appeal of the game, by defining individual choices and strategies. Might as well ask "why do we need television when we've already got radio?" answer: because of the possibilities.
As far as "kitting out units" there's no reason it couldn't be done exactly the same as temple units currently are, just by adding more units (units that happen to look like and act like for instance a Niefel giant armed with a mace instead of an axe), and that doesn't mean adding them a thousand at a time. This once again can be done slowly and carefully, and you can eliminate each and every independent and summoned creature, leaving you with maybe 150-200 total eventual new units. No "dynamic unit design" necessary. You simply allow or disallow the new unit depending on whether or not a Forge is present in the process, exactly the same as is done with Temple or Lab units. You wouldn't be building a unit up from the ground by putting the head of a jotun on the body of a hoburg, for example, just possibly having more options of units to purchase, depending on what your nation can specialty manufacture.

By the way, I "handwaved" you because I felt that brushing you off with simplistic answers was more courteous than simply ignoring your post, which was another valid option, but now that you're being a little more polite, I'm taking the trouble to answer your questions a bit more seriously-good manners are appreciated.

Suspension of disbelief is fine, but notice that we don't suspend our disbelief to the point where there aren't any oceans in Dom3 for example. The more realistic (I'm not saying real, I'm saying realistic) a game can be made-often enough, atleast if it's done well-the better a game will be, because our suspension of disbelief comes easier and is more complete, adding to our game-immersion. Having an additional structure which adds a technological dimension to the game apart from magic and faith, could make the game stronger and more complete, and appeal more to games who both want a more in-depth strategic game and more choices.
I don't know why you see this as such a radical change. None of the basic idea I'm proposing hasn't been done already in the game. Uh-Nu-Buh's already partially implementing it in a mod. I'd be happy if it did show up in Dom4, but it's not remaking the whole game.

I'm willing to take some blame for confusion or hostility because of my enthusiasm for my own ideas, which may cause me to ignore some pertinent information at times, and also because of the lengths of my writings and any difficulty others have understanding me through the dubious medium writing (but what else do we have?), but I refuse to take complete blame. This is a good game, but it needs to continue to grow in SOME direction or like anything else it will eventually die of old age and obsolescence.

[HoneyBadger]

Endoperez, I very much agree that I'd like to see different magic items at different ages (For that matter, I'd like to see 2-4 more ages). Forge wouldn't represent massive technical achievements, it would simply represent different styles of armor or weapons differentiating one unit from another. More resources could be put into creating more elite units who can afford the best armor and fine weapons, and more gold could be put into equipping elite soldiers. Having a Forge for some nations like Ermor for instance might mean more, but not absolutely. for every nation. Jotuns with a Forge might invent the sling but jotuns without one may be stuck with spears, javelins, and boulders. It wouldn't mean Jotuns would invent gunpowder-although maybe late era Tien'Chi does in the form of crude fireworks with limited battlefield value. My concept of the Forge is as a stepping stone to differentiate a province with a much higher technological infrastructure than others, a situation which historically often enough did occur, and which wouldn't be out of place. If you wanted the best steel, you went to Toledo or Damaskus. Venice had glassblowers and the Dutch had skilled craftspeople. Constantinople had silk and the weight of a thousand years of relative enlightenment. Other places were at best, well...midieval. You can compare this with places like Delphi and Jerusalem as far as temples go. As far as labs go, it's harder to draw a real-world comparison, but for ritual spells certainly Stonehenge comes to mind.
If you want to build the best armies then you need an infrastructure. A big part of the reason Rome was so successful is because it had Greece. Greek artizans, thinkers, and artists, and Greek soldiers who were both tough and smart. If Rome had been founded in England, we probably wouldn't be speaking English right now.

[Levolun]

HoneyBadger said: If Rome had been founded in England, we probably wouldn't be speaking English right now.

That's an odd statement.

I've played the demo for about 3 hours & I've got a question about how the forge would help gameplay.

HoneyBadger said: My concept of the Forge is as a stepping stone to differentiate a province with a much higher technological infrastructure than others, a situation which historically often enough did occur, and which wouldn't be out of place. If you wanted the best steel, you went to Toledo or Damaskus. Venice had glassblowers and the Dutch had skilled craftspeople. Constantinople had silk and the weight of a thousand years of relative enlightenment.

Doesn't the game already have this? In those three hours, I was able to conquer a total of four new regions (ok, not the best numbers there, but... Two were forest regions right next to each other. One region was able to produce troops at 1/2 the cost of the other. Given that gold applies to the whole nation, doesn't the difference imply a better infrastructure in the 'cheaper' region?

HoneyBadger said: Forge wouldn't represent massive technical achievements, it would simply represent different styles of armor or weapons differentiating one unit from another. More resources could be put into creating more elite units who can afford the best armor and fine weapons, and more gold could be put into equipping elite soldiers.

Doesn't the game already have this? I was playing the available 'celtic' nation (EA obviously). It had soldiers, when you looked at their stats, who had helms and swords while others had maces and helms and shields and chainmail. The different soldiers had different equipment and different costs and looked different to boot.


But, those weren't my questions. My question is this.. Let's say at the beginning of the game, I can choose between a Troll race of 7att/ 7def folks and a Human race of 5att/ 5def folks. Why would I ever choose the Humans over the Trolls, if all the modifiers are the same? Could you really say that a human iron mace is worth +2, where a Troll iron mace is +1 on the same forge and construction level?

Which, that brings up the thought that you might consider resources, where you need iron or copper or horses before you can build specific troops/weapons/modifiers.

It seems to me that a moddable units with a forge adds needless complexity and removes some individuality from the game, because there might be a basic 'chassis' (or body type) that works better than another.

I might change my mind when I reach 10 hours of gametime, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks,

[HoneyBadger]

You make some good points, Levolun.

The reason I made that statement is because at the time of the Roman Empire, Greece was already a very technologically-advanced empire, so were Egypt and Carthage, for that matter, so Rome didn't happen in a test-tube. It had a lot of role-models and a broad base of military and technical know-how to draw from. England at the time was still barbarian backwoods, with only the remnants of the fringes of the Celts to look to for any real "civilization" in the, ironically, Roman/Western sense, and it took the advent of a conquering Rome to help the situation.

Forest regions do get better resources, because they have all that readily available wood. Wood's good by itself, but it's also good for smelting and forging metals because it can be made into charcoal. Owning a forest province doesn't make you Greece though, it just means you have a nice stand of timber you can lumber off. It shouldn't affect your gold-cost though.

Now we're getting into the heart of the matter. Ok, you compare humans to trolls. Your Celtic humans are a great example because some are equipped with chainmail while others are bare-chested. That's fine as per the purposes of the game, without Forging, but suppose you wanted to arm your Celts with some of the advanced weapons the Celts and Saxons and Gauls and Scottish and Irish and etc. actually invented? You could equip them with the Seax or the Falcata or the Irish longspear or the Scottish claymore or the dirk (perhaps a little anachronistically, but still...) or even a harpoon (to represent the Gae Bolga). The possibilities go on and on, but still you're talking one human with one weapon. You shouldn't have to invent a whole new nation just because you want the Irish to represent. But, advances like the Falcata SHOULD cost more to equip your units, and that cost is technology and resources. That's what the Forge represents, a determined effort to improve your nation via the application of technology and infrastructure. Now you might say "well one broadsword is as good as any other, why do we need seven different colors of the same thing when we already have a few types of generic sword in the game?" Well, because we already have the Falchion. And the falchion is a different breed of sword from a broadsword, so why limit ourselves and the game to one curious type of specialization?

Now, consider the Trolls. Trolls get a bad rep: they're stupid, ugly, and they eat gold like you and I would split a pizza. But they are crafty, and sneaky, and mercenary, and mean, and some of them more than others. Smart trolls (who grow up to be Troll Kings) are out there, and maybe some of them decide that they want to use technology too. Well, clever or not, they're lazier than humans, that's why they live under bridges instead of staying at the Ritz.
So when they invent, they think bigger, and spikier, and smashier versions of what us humans have already invented. Troll smiths come up with something like the Troll-sized 3 headed flanged iron mace. Great for smashing, carbon-graphite shaft, has a nice sweet spot. And because Troll-sized is Jotun-sized, they turn around and sell it to the Jotuns, and then the Jotuns start inventing, or more probably, they've been inventing all along, coming up with things like "axe" and "boot" and "war" while us humans were still dangling from the trees eating lice off of each other (until God told us not to, for those Christian creationists out there). Now Troll arms are far more expensive than human arms, because they're 5 sizes larger and because they can sell new designs to the Jotuns for a fortune (and Jotuns always want exclusive rights). They're also cruder, because as stated before, Trolls are lazy, and they're mostly just in it to make a buck. If you got a human or a jotun master smith to make you a triple-headed, flanged, iron mace, it's going to be a work of deadly loving beauty, and it's going to work great. If you get a troll to do it, it's going to be a hulking rusty monstrosity, and it just won't work as well. Att and Def will be reduced. Damage might even be a little tiny bit lower because all the flanges aren't individually aligned to maximal aerodynamic brains-on-the-slaughterhouse-floor angle. It'll still smash 'em up good though.

The Forge, however, doesn't take on balancing issues by itself. It's up to whoever uses the Forge application to resolve that, and hopefully that person will have some sense. Some nations just get more out of the Forge than others, and that's a good indicator of a population's overall intelligence, creativity, determination, and-most importantly of all-ability to steal ideas from their neighbors.

[Endoperez]

I'm not quite sure if Marverni -> Marignon works, but Marignon (a nation of MA) has halberds, pikes and greatswords - those would be the Irish Longspears and Scottish Claymore.

Rome was in Italy precisely because the technology already existed.

Also, "a determined effort to improve a nation via the application of technology and infrastructure" doesn't mean magic. If Romans decided to invest on technology (as they did), they might have gotten swords of sligthly different design better suited for formations, or better armors, or better helmets, or perhaps may have come up with a more effective way of making armor. This took more than few years, though. Even a decade would really push it, and your Forge would produce wonders in very, very short time. Claymores weren't invented in 6 months, and a Forge shouldn't take longer to build than a castle...

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, I wish (and hope for the future) that there was a way, based on the time/aging system for new units to appear for nations at certain years. This would really help make the Forge useful, because you'd have to protect your Forge for say a year or 10 years or whatever until it started paying off in larger amounts. It still would be useful in the beginning of the game for added resources and a few different kinds of units, but it would grow better as time went by, providing the Forge had an "age".